First Christmas
by MoyaKite
Summary: Human!AU - Fem!Japan and America spend their first Christmas together as husband and wife. - A rather silly gift for a friend.
1. Chapter 1

Prompt: FemJapan and America celebrating their first Christmas together as husband and wife.

This was a gift for a friend. They don't like Sakura as fem!Japan's human name, so I opted for Kikuko, the feminine form of Kiku.

* * *

They'd been married in the summer at the beach. In the dead of a New York winter, though, it seemed an eternity rather than a short six months. As their first Christmas as a married couple approached, Al took to singing Christmas carols at the top of his lungs, setting up inflatable snowglobes and wire reindeer in the front yard, and tacking mistletoe to the top of every doorway to sneak kisses from Kikuko. Cutting down and decorating a real pine tree was Kikuko's favorite, though she also indulged Al's pet tradition of Advent Calendar scavenger hunts.

On Christmas Eve, Kikuko dressed herself up in her best date clothes and got ready for a proper night on the town. When she got downstairs, she found Al stirring something in the kitchen, flour dusting his nose.

"Christmas cake?" Kikuko asked, but the batter looked dangerously thick for cake.

"Cookies for Santa!" Al beamed. "And a couple for us, too, of course."

Kikuko put on an apron to keep the flour off her nicest clothes and settled on a stool beside him. He tilted his head toward a rolling pin and some cookie cutters, even though the cookie dough was clearly too runny—they were meant to be drop cookies, from the look of them.

"My old man will give me an earful if I don't call him tomorrow." Al sighed. "Wish we could spend the day together. Just us two. But I guess we have New Year's for that."

Kikuko hesitated, almost opening her mouth to speak, but Al plunged ahead.

"But Christmas is for families, I guess." He nudged her should, leaving a streak of powdered sugar. "And you're all the family I need, but my old man just won't see it like that. Hah. No baby birds allowed to leave his nest."

"So we aren't going out on a date tonight?" Kikuko asked. Heat rose in her cheeks; she toyed with a cookie cutter, feeling embarrassed. In Japan, Christmas was a date night for couples; New Year's was the one reserved for serious family time.

"A date?" Al looked her up and down for the first time, noticing her new dress. He tried to brush the sugar off her shoulder and left a streak of eggy flour instead. "Aw, babe, everything's closed on Christmas." Guilt pooled in his expression for a moment before he brightened. "We could go to Denny's!"

"A night at home sounds lovely," Kikuko said quickly. Al frowned.

"If you're sure…" He glanced at the TV. "I can show you all of my favorite Christmas movies! Did you know that there's one with Arnold Schwarzenegger in it?" At Kikuko's expression, he hastened to add, "No violence! Well, just some jetpacks."

"Jetpacks?" Kikuko repeated.

"And a parade!" Al said enthusiastically. "There are a bunch of fun ones. We can eat cookies and curl up with a mug of hot chocolate. Oh, oh, and we wear our pajamas! And make a pillow fort!"

Kikuko smiled. Maybe not the Christmas she'd expected, but it didn't sound half bad.

"Let me go change," she said. As she hopped off her stool and slipped out of the room, Al caught her by the arm.

"Mistletoe!" he sang. Kikuko laughed and kissed him—he tasted like chocolate chips.

"If you don't stop eating the cookie dough, there won't be any left for Santa," Kikuko chided. She flicked his nose, and he made his sad puppy expression—the I-promise-I'll-be-good expression that lasted about as long as an unattended hamburger at a dog park. Kikuko pecked him on the cheek. "And I hope you're planning to share with me, too!"

"I'll make you your own batch!" Al said. On Halloween, he'd made her an entire plate of zombie-themed sugar cookies. "Gingerbread men and houses to match!" Al's gingerbread men would probably be missing limbs, but he was an architect for a living; the houses would surely be masterpieces.

"Sounds perfect," Kikuko said. "I'll wait patiently in the living room."

"In your pajamas?" Al asked, pulling back to let her escape.

"In my pajamas," she agreed. "With Tama and Armstrong, too." Their cats would appreciate the company, at least. "Don't keep me waiting!"


	2. Chapter 2

Armstrong was a thirty pound fatso who liked to stretch and fill both of their laps at once; it was a nice enough excuse to curl up under Al's arm. If she sat any farther away, Armstrong would start yowling at them. Tama was much better behaved; he liked to sit on the arm of the couch and watch television with them.

And it certainly was a lot of television. Kikuko choked down laughter as Al read the lines with the actors in a dramatic voice. He'd clearly seen Jingle All the Way at least thirty times, to say nothing of Home Alone (and Home Alone 2), a dozen made-for-TV Christmas specials on Disney, and even the Christmas episode of Rugrats, which he insisted was a classic in between his dramatic reenactment of Angelica calling the dump and asking for Santa Claus.

Kikuko watched Al more than the movies, truth be told. His eyes lit up every single time that the kids realized Santa was real. Santa's platter of cookies was certainly enough to feed the man and all of his reindeer, and a whole pitcher of milk had been secured out of reach of the cats.

"We've gotta go to bed early, or Santa won't come," Al yawned. Kikuko glanced at the clock—only 9pm, a good six hours earlier than Al's usual bedtime. "I don't want to scare him away on our first Christmas."

Kikuko opened her mouth to point out that Santa couldn't actually be real, but shut it again. Maybe it was an elaborate tradition of his—after all, he surely couldn't believe in Santa, could he?

As they curled up in bed, though, doubt ate away at Kikuko. He'd never had a Christmas away from his family before; Arthur had brought him up on so many fairy tales that he might actually believe in Santa—Arthur might have kept labeling presents as coming from Santa even after Al left college. She imagined his crestfallen expression when only the presents from himself and Kikuko were waiting under the tree—the cookies uneaten—the milk untouched—

Thankful as ever that Al slept like a rock, Kikuko slept out of bed and padded down the hall in her slippers. As she approached the living room, she heard—crunching? She held her breath. Surely that was just Armstrong at his kibble. But, craning her neck, she could see both Armstrong and Tama curled up on the back of the couch, just barely in her line of sight from the hallway. She pressed herself against the wall and fumbled for something she could use to defend herself—a baseball bat.

The crunching was replaced by slurping. Kikuko readied the bat and lunged out of the shadows.

Arthur looked back at her, milk droplets and cookie crumbs coating his fake Santa beard. For a moment, neither of them moved.

"I've left your presents under the tree," Arthur said quietly. He set the pitcher down. He didn't even look drunk—mostly mortified. "Ahem. Hohoho." The laughter fell flat. Armstrong groaned and stretched in his sleep.

Silence lapsed again between them.

"Al plans to call you tomorrow," Kikuko managed. Arthur brightened.

"Good that he hasn't forgotten me, then." He coughed. "Er, please don't mention this to Alfred."

"Will you be back next year?" Kikuko asked, gesturing at his red suit. "Like…this?"

"I was hoping you'd be my co-conspirator, truthfully," Arthur muttered, red to the tips of his ears. "I tried telling him half a dozen times, but the foolish boy wouldn't listen. I couldn't—his heart would break."

Kikuko nodded.

"Oh, thank heavens," Arthur sighed. "Happy Christmas, then. I'll see you on the morrow."

Kikuko waved as he stole back up the chimney, leaving a trail of sooty bootprints and tripping three of Al's Santa Traps™.

"Merry Christmas."


End file.
